Not ‘our Church,’ but the Lord’s

THE EDITOR: Bruce Hamel in his letter to the Editor (Newsday, Tuesday July 22) addressed a number of questions to me with regard to my series Why Catholics leave the Church. His first question is to whether I could give in ‘points’ reasons for Catholics leaving, I need only one point and I find it in Bruce Hamel’s letter. He writes ‘our Church.’ Well it is not our Church. It is the Lord’s Church. We have not created it and we do not possess it. Since Bruce Hamel is unlikely to take my word for it I will quote Cardinal Kaspar: “It is he (Christ) who transmits life to the Church from generation to generation. The ecclesiastical magisterium is only a humble servant of his action. The Church is not purely an exterior body created by the community of believers ... The Church can’t be made from below (but) not even the hierarchy, the Pope, the bishops, can think it’s they who ‘produce the Church.’’

It is this business that it is ‘our’ Church which accounts for our thumbing our nose at every Vatican directive which doesn’t suit us. We set out during slavery to construct ‘our’ Church with disastrous results. We continued to construct a respectable well-heeled Church excluding the modern day widow with her penny and the prostitute, a Church not of the Sacraments but of the priest Trini-wood star-ing, a charismatic Church, a Caribbean Church. None will work. It is the Lord’s Church. The second question that Bruce Hamel asks is the absence of references to the Bible in order to prove my thesis. I am neither a Muslim vis a vis the Koran nor a Christian Fundamenta-list whose Faith is made and rests on, the Bible. I am a Catholic. Because I am a Catholic I am wary of personal interpretations of the Bible. I read the Bible ‘in Church,’ ie, within the lived experience and traditions of the Apostles and of the People of God. Because I am a Catholic I place great store on reasons, or if you like on the ‘two wings Faith and Reason’ to quote Cardinal Newman or indeed the Holy Father.

I need not add that I am not a Gnostic, ie, I do not get automatic and semi-secret wisdom from above. I can therefore rely on reasons in my series. The third question of Bruce Hamel is whether or not I have ‘galvanised’ (it is the word he uses) people to join ‘our’ church.  I do not believe that Faith is based on ‘galvanizing’ or the use of emotions in order to achieve ‘joining.’ I leave ‘galvanizing’ for TV commercials and election campaigns. God speaks in silence. If Bruce Hamel means ‘conversion’ I readily admit that I have converted no one. It is the Lord who freely chooses his disciples and the Holy Spirit who prompts Faith. I can only announce the ‘good news.’ In this as in the Church I am only the humble and useless servant of the Lord. With reference to Bruce Hamel’s presumption as to what and for whom I pray while in Church, I can assure Bruce Hamel that while at Mass I rarely pray for anything: the Word, the Creed, above all the Eucharist are prayers — as is silence. I hope that this replies to Bruce Hamel’s concerns.

MARION O’CALLAGHAN
Woodbrook